Mary Ainsworth

Mary Dinsmore Salter Ainsworth ( born December 1, 1913 in Glendale, Ohio, † March 21, 1999 in Charlottesville, Virginia) was an American developmental psychologist John Bowlby and James Robertson and the chief representative of the binding theory.

Life

Mary Ainsworth was born as the eldest of three sisters in a family of academics; both parents had doctorates and attached great importance to a comprehensive liberal arts education. The book Character and the Conduct of Life by William McDougall woke in the 15 -year-olds wanting to be a psychologist.

Ainsworth took her degree in psychology in 1929 at the University of Toronto, received the 1936 MA and in 1939 received his doctorate. She worked there for several years as a lecturer. In 1942, she joined the Canadian Army in which they reached the rank of Major. After her military service, she returned to Toronto back to continue teaching personality psychology, and also conducted research in this area.

In 1950, she married Leonard Ainsworth and accompanied him to London so he could finish his studies at University College. She took a job in the research group led by John Bowlby at the Tavistock Clinic, which examined the impact of the separation of mother and child on the child's development. One result of this investigation was that for a comparative analysis of the healthy mother -child relationship should be explored first. As Leonard Ainsworth was offered a job with the East African Institute of Social Research in Uganda, Mary Ainsworth traveled with him and led a field research project on best parent -child relationships with the people of the Ganda, which she described in her book, Infancy in Uganda. 1956, the couple moved Ainsworth to Baltimore, where Mary taught at Johns Hopkins University. After the divorce of Leonhard 1962, she continued her studies on the mother - child bond and examined the interaction of mothers and children under natural conditions. In this context, they regularly visited families in order to observe the behavior of mothers and children. Mary Ainsworth died at the age of 85 years.

Work

Mary Ainsworth developed in the 70s with the so-called Strange Situation ( "Strange Situation Test" from 1970 to 1978 ) a setting for research into childhood bond pattern. For the standardized behavioral observation of one-year children, she chose a waiting room with a play area, as are common in medical practices. After a stranger has occurred, the mother leaves the room for a short time. This separation from the mother, which is a burden for one-year children in the unknown environment, binding behavior should be observed. In the presence of the mother, however, the children should feel safe and be able to explore the area.

Ainsworth noted several characteristics of bond types determine which may develop within this interaction with the attachment figure: secure, insecure -avoidant and insecure- ambivalent. In the first group with a "safe " bond predicted in Bowlby's attachment theory balanced interplay between proximity searching and exploration ( exploration behavior) took place, the mother served as a " secure base ". The second group, the Ainsworth " avoiding " known as, was a strong exploration, but little binding behavior and hardly seemed to suffer from the separation. These children avoided the body and eye contact with the mother. The " ambivalent " children of the third group hardly showed exploratory behavior, were always near the mother, suffered greatly from the separation and were angry at her mother, when she came back.